She'd Not Said A Whole Hell Of A Lot More
by Evelyn Raith
Summary: "She'd Not Said A Whole Hell Of A Lot More" is a line from Ghost Story. When Harry realizes that Murphy doesn't bring up Kincaid on purpose. Harry imagines how things played out between Murphy and Kincaid after his death. I took that tidbit, and expanded it into this story. Takes place about a week after "Changes" from Murphy's PoV.


She'd Not Said A Whole Hell Of A Lot More

By Evelyn Raith

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A/N: "She'd Not Said A Whole Hell Of A Lot More" is a line from Ghost Story. When Harry realizes that Murphy doesn't bring up Kincaid on purpose. Harry imagines how things played out between Murphy and Kincaid after his death. I took that tidbit, and expanded it into this story.

Takes place about a week after "Changes" from Murphy's PoV.

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The wizard known as Harry Dresden was always larger than life. From the moment I met him on a dark bridge crossing the Chicago river, my life had changed. I was introduced to a whole new world; one I never would have imagined existed in my wildest dreams. He tried to protect me from it. He worked hard to keep me sheltered from the darkness that walks the streets at night. Even if it meant I had to arrest him or break his jaw, he would have taken it just to keep me out of the dark.

Of course, I wouldn't allow that. He was this tall, dark, mysterious man that did weird things in the night. I guess it was a wizard thing. He was a little scary at times, but every gut instinct and intuition I had said I should trust him and protect him just the same. I refused to stay in darkness. There was a battle to be fought and my very strange friend Harry was knee deep in it. I couldn't stand on the sidelines and let him keep covering for me. I would not be his liability; I wanted to fight at his side, as his equal.

He reluctantly let me in. I could tell it was something he never really does but maybe his gut instinct about me was good too. He let me in and I quickly realized the cold truth was I could never be his equal, but that didn't mean I wouldn't fight at his side. Harry had powers and abilities I couldn't even begin to understand. Most of them he never even voiced. He'd just close his eyes, open them again and know the answers.

I never looked into his eyes for more than a second. I had heard Harry talking about a Soulgaze once. Where you look into the eyes of a wizard and you see their soul, and they see yours. While I was still a cop, I had instructed all the men working in Special Investigations to not look Harry directly in the eyes. Even though my partner at the time, Ron Carmichael, thought Harry was a full time hack, he still avoided his dark gaze.

I wish now that I had looked. There were times when I came close, but it was always me who looked away. I guess I was afraid I wouldn't pass the test. That he'd see my soul and see what a scared little girl I really was behind the tough exterior. Maybe I was afraid he'd tease me for it, or maybe I was afraid of getting lost somewhere in those dark, intense eyes of his. Losing my self-control to him and all these years of denying my feelings for him would be for nothing.

I still refused to believe he was really gone. Until I saw a body, I would not believe that my weird, larger than life, frustrating as all hell, wizard was dead. When he turns up on my doorstep in a week, I was going to kick his skinny ass for scaring me like this.

It hadn't even been a week, but it felt like a month already. I was still tending to bruises from a little incident at a dockside warehouse with a whole new brand of ugly that had showed up in Chicago. I had dyed my hair black for the occasion, and the roots were showing up blond already, so like all depressed women who just lost their jobs and their wizard, I buzzed my hair off. I kept it a bit spikey and punky on top. Harry's apprentice Molly liked it, so that had me worried.

I had just washed the tears off my face for the second time that day, running my wet hands back through my two-toned buzz cut hair. Thinking about Harry was never productive to my day. The night was even worse. Eventually, I'd start sleeping through the night again. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like hell. It was like I had aged 10 years in a week. I'd certainly done more in a few days than most had done in a lifetime. The dark circles under my eyes made my blue eyes look more a dull grey.

The admiration of my devastated state was cut short when there was a knock on the door. I had been inundated with visitors, most of them very well meaning friends, but I swear if this was another of Marcone's guys trying to get me to agree to some freakish truce, or some tall, leggy, blond from Monoc Securities trying to recruit me, I was going to just gun them down.

I grabbed my SIG and stood to the side of the door. "Who is it?" I tried to sound tough and like I hadn't just been crying like a baby.

"Landshark." Came a familiar voice.

I had to smile. After everything that had happened on my trip to Hawaii with Jared Kincaid a few years back, our last night there we had laid in bed, tending our wounds while watching old reruns of Saturday Night Live. The Landshark episode had garnered hearty laughter from Jared.

I cracked open the door and looked beyond the man standing there to see if there was anyone in the bushes, or to either side of the house. Then I opened it a bit more and leaned against the door frame, my gun still at my side.

"Jared, long time no see."

Damn, he was good to see too. He was dressed in jeans that snugly fit his thighs and ass, a plain black t-shirt and a black sports coat over it. He had his sandy blond hair pulled back into a short ponytail at the base of his head

"I've just spent the last several days consoling a very upset, very dangerous teenage girl." He said, in an exhausted tone. He held up a bottle of Midleton Irish Whiskey. "I thought I'd stop buy and cheer you up as well."

I raised a brow at the bottle of $150 whiskey. I took a step back from the door, let it swing wide open.

"If you can come in, I'll share that with you." I said with a grin.

It was a test, if I didn't invite him in and he wasn't who he claimed to be, then coming in on his own could be a problem. I was fairly sure it was him, though. The SNL line alone was meant to be a tip off to me that he was safe.

He gave me a nod and smoothly walked into the living room. I shut the door behind him. He gave me a polite bow.

"And if I hadn't been able to enter?" He set the bottle down on the coffee table.

"I would have shot you in the head and drank the whiskey alone." I set my SIG down on the table next to the bottle and sat down on the couch.

Jared sat down next to me and looked me over. "Been a hard week, huh?"

"Yeah, how's Ivy handling it?" I didn't want the attention on me, I worked much better being worried for other people.

"She's pretty upset. I hadn't been with her when she found out. Some police paperwork about an incident at Raith's boat tipped her off, and it just got worse after that." He set his large hand on my sweat pant wearing knee and I became acutely aware that I was dressed like a slob and looked like hell warmed.

I hopped up. "Let me get us some glasses." I went to the kitchen and grabbed two glasses and took a deep breath, gathered myself together and went back into the living room. I set the glasses on the table as Jared reached for the bottle and opened it.

He poured himself a glass and then handed me the bottle to drink from, sat back and sipped a bit. I stared at the bottle for a moment and contemplated it, then poured a glass for myself.

I leaned back on the couch and Jared raised his glass, "To fallen friends."

I raised my glass and he clinked his against mine. I felt my lip quiver and things got blurry for a moment. I swallowed down the urge to cry and sipped from my glass. I closed my eyes, tossed back the rest in my glass and just let the whiskey burn the hurt away.

I opened my eyes to Jared refilling my glass. "You should have just taken the bottle."

"Probably."

We sat in silence and drank a few more glasses. The warm glow of the booze helped to stunt some of the tight pain in my chest.

He slammed back another glass and asked, "You want to talk about it?"

"What are you, my fucking therapist now?" I took another drink.

He chuckled. "Hell no, but I know how you felt about him, Karrin. You can deny it to everyone else, you can even deny it to yourself, but you can't deny it to me." His cold grey-blue eyes looked deep into mine. As is my way, I looked aside.

"You don't know shit." I spat drunkenly at him.

"I know you look like shit." He spat back and I glared at him. "You probably haven't changed out of those sweatpants and t-shirt in days and what the FUCK is up with your hair?"

I blinked. We had always been very up front and frank with each other. It was one of the things I really liked about Jared. Where Harry was closed up and kept to himself, Jared said what he was thinking at all times. He had never spoken to me like this before, though.

"My best friend is missing, you ass! Of course I look like shit!"

"Your best friend is probably dead, Karrin." He said it without malice or emotion.

"FUCK YOU! He's not dead! He can't be dead!" I balled my hand into a tight fist, my nails digging into my palm. I'm not sure I was talking to Jared or to myself.

Again, Jared said with that cold emotionless tone, "Why can't he be dead?"

I practically growled, "Because we can't do this alone! We can't defend this city without him! Damn it, I'm just not Harry Dresden! We need him!"

"We?" He asked, "It's not our job to defend this town. I think YOU need him."

I took my fisted hand and punched him right in the nose, but his hand grabbed my wrist before I made contact. His grip was like steel and I knew from experience that I couldn't break that grip.

I dropped my glass and lunged at him. I wanted to tear his cold heart out, I wanted to reach right in there and take out all the love I had started to feel for him. I wanted to take it all away from him and save it. Save it for when Harry came back to me.

Instead, he pulled me into him and his mouth found mind. He kissed me. Not gently, but harsh and painful. He released my wrist and pulled me close to him; I grabbed fistfuls of his hair and kissed him back just as hard.

It wasn't what I wanted. Or maybe it's better to say it wasn't _who_ I wanted. Jared was here for a reason, it wasn't to console me while I was depressed. That wasn't his way. He was here to kick my ass, get me back on my feet, and console me in the only way he knew how. As for me, I just wanted to feel life. I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to feel desire and passion and to run out of breath while doing it.

I sucked Jared's bottom lip into my mouth and bit down hard on it. With a growl, he tossed me back onto the couch and held both my hands down above my head, pinning me beneath his much larger body. I looked up at him, his lip bleeding slightly and his hair pulled free from the slick ponytail that had held it.

I looked up at him with a dark, dangerous grin. "Take me, if you can."

The gauntlet had been thrown. He let me go to pull off his sports coat and take off the gun holster under it. I wiggled out from under him and moved the coffee table out of the way (it was an antique, after all). Then he stood up. He was a full foot taller than me, but I'd fought off bigger. Not that I really wanted to fight him off at this point, this was all just part of the way we played.

I waited for him to make the first move, he reached for me and I let him grab my arm and yank me in. Then I spun and the last minute and slammed my heel into his shin down to his foot. He let out a cuss in a language I didn't know and stepped around me with his other foot and shoved at my shoulder. I tripped up and fell over, but rolled with it and ended up on my feet again.

"You never did stay down when you should." He chuckled.

"Depends on what meaning of 'down' you're talking about." I shot back.

He made a pleased sound in his throat, "True."

I made my move and hooked my leg back around his, shifting his weight forward as I ducked under his arm and pushed him to one knee. He looped his arm around my waist and lifted my hips up to his face and bit down hard on the back of my thigh.

I tried to stifle a yelp. As he held me up, I took the opportunity to yank his t-shirt free of his pants and when I got to my feet again the shirt was in my hands and he was on both knees, barechested.

"I like this look on you, you should be on your knees more." I said.

We stumbled and romped through the living room until we were both slightly bruised, out of breath and mostly naked.

He had lifted me up and pinned me to one of the walls so that our faces were almost the same height. He held me there with his body, more than his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist and rubbed one foot up and down along the back of his lean, muscular legs. He ground his hips into mine, but we still were in our underwear.

He was breathing hard through his nose, sounding like a bear in a cave. He kissed me, softly this time, and then leaned his forehead against mine. "I'm not him."

I felt my heart skip a beat.

"I know." I said.

"I can never be him, or anything like him." His voice sounded angry and defeated. "This world is dark with me in it, but it's even darker without him."

I felt the tears fill my eyes and I made one of those weird hiccup noises that you make when you've cried just too hard and too much.

"I know." I finally managed to say. "But you're here, and he's not."

He took a deep breath, and ripped my panties right off me. "Just so we're clear."

"Crystal." I gasped.

He cupped my ass with one hand and used the other to slide his boxer briefs off his hips. I leaned forward and kissed him hard as he positioned himself in the wet folds of my womanhood.

I suppose it's cliché to say that he was above average in size, especially to a small woman like me. Jared was very well endowed and I was a tight fit for him.

They don't tell you that in the stories, do they? The romance novels and the movies, all glide over problems like this. We couldn't just rush into sex. There was no such thing as a 'quickie' for Jared and me. It just sounds like bad fanfic if I mention how huge his member is.

Well, it's huge.

I bit his lip again as he slowly eased into me. Keeping me pinned to the wall without any effort, and slowly lowering me down onto him. Pausing to let me adjust and then lowering me more. It was slow, sensual torture.

I thought about Harry again. I thought about how I never touched him enough. How I never gave myself the chance to experience him. I even thought about how wrong it was to be thinking about Harry while in this particular position with another man.

I grabbed fistfuls of Jared's hair as he shifted gears from adjustment to fulfillment, grinding his hips up into me. He growled as I shifted my hips in slow circles around him.

I filled every thrust and grind with all the pain that had been building up in me. I dug my nails into his shoulders until they drew blood. His fingers dug into my flesh until I was bruised.

We slid down the wall, and I made sure I kept the upper hand and pinned him to the floor. He kept his hands tight on my hips as I moved above him. I dug my nails into his chest for leverage and we worked each other into a frenzy.

My mind again drifted to Harry, I closed my eyes and thought about him. I imagined what it might have been like to be in this situation with Harry. I imagined him being under me, moving with me, inside me. He would have been timid, gentle, careful… at least at first.

How could he be gone, he had lived through so much. Didn't he say that the only way he would go out without a bang was if…

I looked down at Jared. Harry said that one of the ways he could be taken out is by a high powered rifle at long range. As I moved with Jared, I remembered the splatter of blood on Raith's boat. I thought about a shot I had seen Jared make on our trip to Hawaii. The high powered rifle he had at the time, and the impossible shot he made from a ridiculous distance.

Jared opened his eyes as we quickly approached climax. I knew then. The moment he looked into my eyes, he was the reason Harry wasn't here. Somehow, he was responsible for this. He grabbed harder onto my hips and I dug my hands into his arms. I bared my teeth and rode him as hard as I could, filtering all my rage into our movements.

I kept looking into his face as we both came. This time I didn't look away. I refused to break the eye contact. It was all I could do to focus as he growled out and waves of pleasure washed over me.

With one final shudder, Jared let go of my hips and let his arms drop to his sides. Normally, at this point, Jared would wrap himself around me and hold me briefly. Not really in a loving way, I'm sure it was derived from years of dealing with the opposite sex post coitus. Today, I just rose up off of him and went around the room collecting my clothes.

Jared sat up and watched me as I got dressed again without saying a word. I tossed his pants at him and he caught them. My mind was reeling; I didn't want it to be true. There were two men in the world that I cared about. Had one of them actually removed the other from my life?

I watched Jared get dressed. As he pulled his coat back on, his grey-blue eyes found mine once more. I felt my stomach churn. From the realization? From the guilt? There was so much wrong in with this whole thing. My brain didn't even know where to start.

Without looking away. He nodded to me. His usually unreadable eyes clearly trying to tell me he was sorry. I turned my head from him and said the only thing that made sense at the time. "Leave the whiskey."

The moment I heard the front door close, fresh tears found my cheeks.

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Disclaimer: Harry Dresden and all established characters, settings, etc. are the property of Jim Butcher and ROC publishers. The original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.


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